The Riddle
by JTheGoblinKing
Summary: Bob's past comes to visit.


Fan fiction inspired by Random thoughts

Fan fiction inspired by Random thoughts.

Random thought. In the books there's pretty much a list of what counts as black magick. And I think it's safe to guess that Bob pretty much did them all. Now I know the show is a completely different universe from the books but I figure the rules of magick are pretty much the same.

So here's my weird thought. Did Hrothbert of Bainbridge ever use Chronomancy? It's on the list of what counts as black magick. Time magick. That is to say did he ever use magick to time travel? If so I imagine he was probably very clumsy at it or he would have tried to use that to prevent Winifred's death to begin with. But that would have been grounds for a very interesting plot on the show. Hrothbert of Bainbridge turns up in modern day Chicago and Harry has to stop him from possibly causing trouble, send him back where he belongs, and all the while keep him from learning what later becomes of him as to not interfere with the course of Bob's life / death. All the while Harry would probably have to struggle with guilt of not warning mortal Bob of what he was destined to become but I imagine Hrothbert, of the dark ages, would have made one Hell of an antagonist for Harry on the show.

Disclaimer: The Dresden Files are the property of The Scifi Channel and Jim Butcher. This story based on the version of Harry Dresden and Bob of the television series. Title from the song The Riddle from The Scarlet Pimpernel as performed by Terrence Mann. I own nothing.

If the writing style in this is unsteady, sporadic or just plain stupid keep in mind I wrote this after just four hours sleep and two cups of English breakfast tea.

--

The Riddle:

For the last few weeks Bob had been more fidgety than ever. Harry was not used to seeing him like this. The ghost was pacing around the lab and his hands were in constant motion. Harry took notice of the fact that the ghost was toying with the manacles on his wrists as he paced. This was something Bob tended to do out of some odd nervous habit. What was it? The damned equivalent of biting your fingernails? He only seemed to do it when he thought Harry was not looking or it was so absent neither seemed to notice it was happening.  
'Harry what day is it?'  
'It's Thursday, Bob.' Harry sounded exasperated. 'Just like yesterday was Wednesday. I know you lose track of time being dead and all but-'  
'And the date?'  
'The eighteenth.'  
The ghost's eyes shifted toward the clock that hung on the wall. 'Harry, there's something I've been keeping from you.'  
'So what else is new?'  
'Harry, this is most important. I have to tell you...'

There was a loud explosion not far away. Some car alarms were going off.  
'Oh, dear...' Bob said.

There was a little jangling bell, like on the door of an old fashioned shoppe, and a creaking sound as Harry's office door came open. Several High Council wardens poured in, swords already out and Ancient Mai was amongst them, unarmed of course. She did not actually need to carry a weapon.

Harry stepped out of the lab leaving the heavy old door open. This was a small mercy for Bob so he could walk through a door way as if he were a real person and not just an insubstantial ghost passing through the walls. Did Bob realize this was a mercy? Probably. But it was an unspoken one. And Harry didn't announce it, nor did Bob thank him out loud for it but they both knew what the act signified.  
Bob wasn't far behind Harry. Harry didn't notice the unusual quality of Bob following him out to talk with the wardens. Usually Bob stayed clear of them when possible.  
'Ancient Mai, this is a pleasant surprise.' Harry feigned a smile.  
Mai seemed to be looking straight through Harry. 'If you weren't already dead I'd kill you myself!'

That's when Harry realized, to his utter amazement, Ancient Mai was looking past him. For once he wasn't the one she was yelling at. She was addressing Bob. Harry was not used to seeing her address Bob at all. She never even acknowledged that he was there. She treated him the way Harry figured most people treat a kid's imaginary friend. Sometimes he thought it was meant to be some sort of psychological torture she was deliberately pulling on Bob by pretending he was not there to frustrate him and make him feel even more insubstantial. At least he, Harry, talked to him besides just to get information about spells and potions out of him. He actually could hold conversations with him. Even if they did argue... a lot.

'I can... I...' Bob stammered for words.  
'Save it!' She said 'What matters is we get him back to his own time without altering anyone's past time lines.' She was saying to Bob.  
'He? Whose he?' Harry asked. He wanted to know why she was talking about.  
'Why don't you ask the ghost.' Ancient Mai said coldly.  
'Chronomancy.' Bob said as if that explained everything.  
'Harry's expression was utterly blank.  
Bob sighed. It was his turn to feel exasperated. 'I used a great deal of black magick in my life.' Bob admitted with the humility of one who truly regretted.  
'And?' Harry asked impatiently with a gesture to signify 'Get on with it'  
'And in my quest to bring Winifred back one of my efforts included Chronomancy... Time travel through the use of magick. I over shot my course. I went forward instead of backward...'  
'And you landed on the wrong continent.' It was Morgan who spoke up, standing near to Ancient Mai as if he had been there all along and maybe he had.  
Harry's expression was utterly blank for a moment. 'Wait. Let me get this straight. There's a badly dressed, psychotic, black magick junkie, love crazed necromancer-sorcerer running around the streets of Chicago?!' He turned and looked angrily at Bob. 'And you didn't warn me?! You knew this would happen and you didn't warn me?!'  
'I was NOT badly dressed! I was very stylish in my time.' Bob protested. Bob knew he was being petty. 'Anyway, I couldn't warn you. Things have to unfold the way I remember them. I cannot interfere with that. I am sorry.'  
'THAT "sorcerer"' Ancient Mai practically spat the word 'Is running around in MY city and you wonder why I refused to consider a form of parole.' Again she was glaring at Bob.  
'What?' Bob looked at Harry in confusion. He, Bob, had not pleaded for some sort of parole. He hadn't tried that for centuries- since they always refused him considering his sentence was eternal and the extent of his crimes. That left only Harry. Harry had tried to plead for him? When?  
Harry looked away from Bob, not wanting to look at him at that moment. It had been after Bob had given his life for him to destroy Justin Morningway once and for all. He had felt that he had owed it to Bob. Now though he wondered if that had been such a good idea. Harry felt betrayed that Bob did not warn him about this. And angry still that Bob (well, living Bob) had done this, technically was doing this as they spoke but he had to try to remember that for Bob these were events that happened to him, almost a thousand years before. 'Get in your skull, ghost.'  
Bob's expression of love and endearment toward Harry turned to one of hurt. And then hardened. He would not let them see how hurt he was. He deserved this, after all. He felt the pull of the manacles on the wrists, the subtle growing of discomfort that would soon be out right pain if he resisted. 'Fine.'

Bob dissolved from view. In his wake was a ball of glowing orange-yellow light surrounded in dark, blackish smokey haze. The light darted away from them and back into the lab, to the waiting skull.

Harry was rubbing his forehead when he looked at Ancient Mai. 'So as to not interfere with history we're supposed to find him, catch him, and send him back?'  
'And reveal as little about the future as possible.' Morgan said.  
'Especially of his own future.' Mai interjected.  
'And how are we supposed to do this?' Harry asked. He looked like his stomach was turning.  
'With this.' Ancient Mai held out a small object that had been in the pocket of her cute girlish outfit. Ancient Mai did not look ancient. She looked like a pretty, young Asian woman, barely more than a girl. The object she held was blue jewel in the shape of an eye. It was as big as an egg and glittered in the light. It looked valuable but in Harry's mind it was like a cheap Austrian crystal you might see at a flea market.  
'It's called the eye of Chronos.' Ancient Mai said. 'If one of us can get close enough to press this stone to his forehead he'll be transported back to his own time and rendered unable to use Chronomancy again.'  
This was actually the most humane Harry had ever seen Ancient Mai act in regard to a sorcerer reeking havoc but he figured she was only acting like this because if anything else happened to Bob's younger more angry self it might prevent him from being cursed later and Harry felt that though she barely acknowledged Bob, ancient Mai got some sort of sick pleasure out of his eternal torment.

Ancient Mai was looking at Harry intently. If she could read thoughts she said nothing of it. 'And YOU are going to stop him.' Ancient Mai handed Harry the blue stone.  
'Me!?'  
'You know Hrothbert better than anyone else here.' Ancient Mai said. 'How his mind works, how he ticks, what he'd do and where he'd go.'  
'I know Bob!' Harry said hastily.  
'Oh, wake up, Harry! Do you really think he's that different from what he used to be? Sociopaths like that DON'T change. Sorcerers like that can NEVER change!'  
'Bob DID change!' Harry protested angrily. 'He's not the man he was. And he is NOT a sociopath.'  
'The ONLY reason he's not the man he was is because he's now a ghost, unable to effect the world around him. If he were alive he'd be up to his old tricks again.'  
'That's not true and you know it!'

Ancient Mai did not say another world after that. She turned to head out the door. She paused at the entrance way as if having second thoughts about something. 'Morgan, stay with him and help if you can in case he screws up.' She continued out the door with the other wardens, walking out as if they were ordinary mortals.  
Morgan turned and looked at Harry. His expression was hard and unreadable. 'We're going to need your ghost fort this.'  
'For now I think it's best Bob stay safely tucked away and out of sight.' Harry said, a hint of frustration in his voice.

Hrothbert of Bainbridge looked like Bob. His movements were oddly, lighter, more languid, more graceful. There were no invisible chains holding him to a skull. His hair was white as Bob's was but it was longer. It was tied back. He wore a black cloak made of velvet. He certainly did not belong to this era. The rings on his fingers were same though. The face and eyes were the same too. He was just as pale as the ghost. But this was no ghost.

The sorcerer's expression was surprisingly cold for someone who had just walked into another time. Fortunately though he was walking down a relatively quiet side street in early afternoon and there weren't many people around. His eyes were cold, calculating. There was a definite cunning about him. Something to his look gave the impression of hardness. The addiction to black magick coupled with the loss of Winifred had made him this way.

This place was strange. Clearly not where he meant to go. Hrothbert of Bainbridge had found out the date from a passer by. He had noticed that they had stopped using the wording 'in the year of our lord' which for some reason amused him. It was the wrong century. But perhaps he could make the best of being here. It was a secular age. Fear and superstition had died away. And that meant someone with his power could take control easily and they would never suspect it's magick or know how to defeat him. He just had to acclimate himself to the strange devices around and the noxious smells in the air. The food, he wasn't sure if he even wanted to touch that.

A young man had said something derogatory about his cloak. Something about a costume party. Well, he figured fashions had changed and he would attend to that in due course but for now...

The teenaged boy went screaming as he hit the hood of Harry's Jeep. Harry stopped abruptly. The kid was alive. He groaned as he rolled off the hood.  
'Jesus!' Harry cried out.  
Morgan seemed cool, calm and collected, as always.

Harry stepped out of the Jeep. This was so bizarre. He stepped toward the sorcerer.  
'Hrothbert of Bainbridge!' He called in a commanding tone as if summoning the ghost he knew so well.  
Hrothbert turned and glared at Harry in a way Harry was used to seeing on Ancient Mai's face but not with Bob. It sent a chill down his spine.  
'Do I know you, boy?'  
Harry was no boy. He was thirty-six. His hair was dark. And he was what most might consider an attractive, though shabby looking man. He was very tall. Perhaps too tall but no one complained.  
'You don't belong here.' Harry was careful not to give his name. Not only because names had power but because he could not and would not dare give him any information that might change his future. There was a pang of guilt about that. Perhaps he should have brought Bob with him, have Bob face to face with Hrothbert. If he warned him than maybe he could save him. Maybe he could stop Hrothbert from being damned. He could end an endless torment before it began.  
Morgan could not read Harry's thoughts but he knew him well enough to guess what he was thinking.  
Morgan grabbed Harry's shoulder and leaned close as so the sorcerer would not over hear or read his lips. 'If you do anything to jeopardize the natural order you put your own life in danger, Dresden.'  
'I know Mai's threats.' Harry grumbled.  
'It's not a threat. Think about it. Who taught you how to use your magick? Who testified for you when you killed your uncle? Without his testimony to confirm it was "self defense" you would be dead right now.'  
'But I could save him. I owe it to him. I could save him from himself.'  
Morgan sounded surprisingly patient. 'And every life you might have effected will be as if you never were there to change things.'  
He avoided saying the words 'changed for the better'. 'It's the butterfly effect, Dresden. Change one event in history and you change all of history. the slightest little thing can impact other things in a domino effect.' He decided to simplify it. 'You save that sorcerer's soul and the world might just go boom.'  
Harry sighed. He wanted to argue but he knew Morgan was right.

Hrothbert was cackling- literally cackling. '"I" don't belong here?! ME?! I will dominate this world and I The High Council and all their restrictions will be a thing of the past. Things need to be done and I'm the only one who can do them.' Those words sounded so familiar to Harry but now the ring was decidedly sinister.

Hrothbert laughed again at the deliciousness of seeing this future wizard quake in his presence. He would take the High Council. In his own time or this one. Then he could raise Winifred from the dead without fear of retribution. And with his fantastic power and Winifred at his side they would have the world. The addiction to power was tearing his heart apart, crippling his reason and logic besides his ability to feel sympathy. His moral compass was being obscured, if not crushed under foot.

'I don't believe it.' Harry said.  
'What?' Morgan asked.  
'He's cackling. He's REALLY cackling. I mean he told me he'd been there and done that about dressing all in black and cackling about world domination but I never took it so literally.'  
Morgan gave him an annoyed look.

Harry swallowed. He stepped toward the sorcerer. He felt his hand shaking that clutched the blue stone.

Whelp! Hrothbert raised his hand and Harry was tossed backward by a powerful force. This was his friend. This deranged, obsessed lunatic was his friend! Harry groaned, his back aching. He forced himself to his feet. He could stop him. He could make him understand. He could reason with him. He could warn him. Hrothbert could live a good life and not end up the tormented spirit who resided in his office.  
'Hrothbert, there's something I need to tell you...' Sure it was stupid. Maybe he wasn't thinking. But that was his friend acting like some cartoon cliche about to have an anvil land on his head.

'Help me!' It was a little boy's voice. And for some reason it caused both Harry, Hrothbert, and Morgan to turn.

There was a child with dark wavy hair. He was dressed all in black. the child looked lost and confused, a little frightened. The child had tears in his eyes. Eyes Harry had seen every day for so many years even if they were only illusionary. Oh, no...

Hrothbert was stepping toward the child.

The little boy's lip trembled.  
Oh, that was good. Harry had to give him credit for his acting.  
'I don't know what I did.' The boy said in confusion. 'He was taunting me. And I got so angry. I didn't make the lightning strike that tree! I didn't... I don't know how... The boy wasn't hurt. I... I couldn't have... Please, help me. They'll burn me. I don't want to be burnt. I'm not from The Devil!' The boy wailed.

'This is a trick!' Hrothbert looked as if he had been slapped in the face. 'HOW DARE YOU!'  
The boy, Harry realized, as Hrothbert as a child. His own memory and fears.  
The child smiled weirdly.

'I'LL DESTROY YOU, DEMON!' Hrothbert raised his hands like claws and ran toward the child who did not move.

Harry was too stunned by all of this. He didn't fully understand what was happening. Just then someone grabbed the stone from Harry's hand. He turned to see Morgan beside him. Morgan threw the stone right for the advancing sorcerer's head. The stone hit him right in the forehead.

Hrothbert shrieked and raised his hands, trying to pull away the stone that seemed fastened there. There was a bright blue light that completely engulfed the sorcerer. And then he was gone as if he had never been there.

Harry looked blankly at the child whom was still smirking and then he saw her. Stepping out from the Alley was Ancient Mai and hooked under one arm (as if were a ball) was a familiar skull covered in sigils and runes that bound Bob to the skull.

'Like we said,' Ancient Mai told Harry, 'we needed the help of the one person who would know how to stop him.'

The child wavered like he was made of water, flickered and dissolved and Bob, adult and in a typical dark suit took his place.

Harry's mouth hung open. He was speechless.  
'It needed to be done.' Bob said solemnly. 'And someone needed to stop both you and him.' The seriousness in Bob's tone had to be counter balanced with snark. 'Let's see now... What is that? Twice now that I have saved you and quite possibly the world through my intervention?'

'That doesn't count.' Mai snapped at Bob as if she were a referee in a sporting event. 'You saved it from yourself. It doesn't count.'  
'It counts.' Harry said softly. 'It counts.'  
Bob looked pleadingly at Harry. He had never wanted Harry to directly see him for what he used to be. 'Dresden, can you ever forgive me?' He only called him Dresden when he was either cross with Harry or if he was afraid Harry was cross with him. It was a way of creating a safe distance.  
'It's all right, Bob.' Harry said.  
Bob wasn't sure he really believed that.  
'It's all right.' Harry said that as if patting someone on the back, which he knew he could not do with Bob.

Two weeks later:

Bob was feeling awkward since Harry had seen him like that, seen his darker side. Would Harry ever forgive him? He stayed in his skull as much as possible. It was better there, to not fully be here or there. To be lost in a half-conscious dream. Then he heard Harry call to him. Harry wanted him to come out.

The light surrounded in dark haze emerged from an eye socket of the skull. Bob concentrated and let himself take form. A semi-modern hair cut. A timeless and expensive looking suit of clothes that would have been considered stylish in nearly any time period. Black leather shoes. The rings on his fingers and the two things he wished he could be without or could hide- the manacle bracelets at each wrist that held him by invisible chains to his skull.  
Bob looked at Harry who was smiling at him. Was that good or bad? Bob just stared at him. At the open card board box on the floor and the contraption Harry was trying to assemble without electrocuting himself.  
'What is that?' Bob asked.  
Harry raised an eyebrow. 'Don't recognize it? Sharper image catalog, remember? I ordered it about twelve days ago, after... Well, you know. '  
Bob's expression became utterly blank. If he could breath the air would have been knocked from his lungs with the sense of being touched. The affection he felt at that moment. Bob looked as if the wind was knocked out of him and that's how he felt and so how his illusionary living form responded.

Harry had bought him a page turning device...

The End.


End file.
